Solar energy and other renewables have been making more headway in Europe, where the economic approach is quite different than in the U.S. Depending on how things play out in the global marketplace, that could influence how these technologies fare here.

And they would fight that by forcing a tariff of some sort, by calling the incoming technology job killing.

And they would fight that by forcing a tariff of some sort, by calling the incoming technology job killing.

Or more probably lobbying the media not to cover it at all.

I'm not certain how effective their efforts will be though.

Unless they have overseas offices or subsidiaries, start making a profit there, and decide they can do the same at home. It's too soon yet to tell how likely that is to happen, but if business sees a profit to be made, it (or at least some of it) will shift gears to take advantage.

I've been called a criminal, a terrorist, and a threat to the known universe. But everything you were told is a lie. The truth is, they've taken our freedom, our home, and our future. The time has come for all humanity to take a stand...

Unless they have overseas offices or subsidiaries, start making a profit there, and decide they can do the same at home. It's too soon yet to tell how likely that is to happen, but if business sees a profit to be made, it (or at least some of it) will shift gears to take advantage.

The most profitable corporations on the planet want to stop this from happening.

Absent some serious trust busting, which I'm a fan of, this will be fought at every step, and will continue to take a curiously long time to make it to market.

So you're saying that fighting against this corruption could stagnate the economy?

"We grow up thinking that﻿ beliefs are something to be proud of, but they're really nothing but opinions one refuses to reconsider. Beliefs are﻿ easy. The stronger your beliefs are, the less open you are to growth and wisdom, because "strength of belief" is only the intensity with which you resist questioning yourself. As soon as you are proud of﻿ a belief, as soon as you think it adds something to who you are, then you've made it a part of your ego."

The Democrats seem to have found a way to marginalize the far fringes of their base without completely losing their vote, while the Republicans seem currently to have been overwhelmed and taken over by their far fringes. Assuming you agree with that rather generic statement, why do you think that the GOP has been less successful in holding their middle? And, how do you think they can pull back from this current trend? Or, do you think it's possible at this point for that to happen?

About 20% of America calls itself liberal; about 40% calls itself conservative. That asymmetry explains a great deal of the difference between the parties. The Democrats cannot remotely convince themselves that their base can deliver elections for them. They know they must work to broaden their coalition—and to restrain their base. Their base knows it too.

The bigger Republican base, however, can imagine itself as representing the majority of the country, or anyway, something close to it. All that's needed is one last push! And when you are so close to having everything your own way—why compromise?

That aversion to compromise is intensified by a strange fact of American government. Republicans, the anti-government party, depend on the votes of the elderly, the affluent, and the rural—in other words, the American government's redistributional winners. From the point of view of those voters, any compromise will bring only bad news to them. They like things the way they are now! And—in contrast to more prosperous times in the past—they don't today feel they have anything like the margin of security that would allow them to share.

This is one of the major themes of Patriots: the most affluent have become the most anxious. My selfish protagonist, heir to a mustard fortune, stands in for these winners—and then breaks with them, not because he is so very remarkably generous, but because something in him recoils and rebels at a political game that heaps accumulating rewards on the winners—and only accumulating penalties on the losers.

Do I see hope for such a trend in real life? I don't know. But we need it.

I'm realistic about whether or not Romney will have the political will to instate the necessary policies to get us growing sustainably, but what I know for a fact is that doubling down on a broken entitlement system will not, without a doubt work.

Let this thread stand as a challenge to all the smartest of you on the other side to come up with a better vision for the future (that's realistic and not possible only in some idealistic fever dream).

I'm just trying to move the debate forward here.

Yes I have an incentive to convince those on the fence to vote republican, but I also care more about what's best for the country, and so the ideas that can come out of this are more important than any petty political goals I may have.